It may seem like just another annoying insect, but it is not. The red fire ant (Solenopsis invitation) is considered one of the worst invasive species in the world and is the fifth most complicated species to control. And it has already arrived in Europe after colonizing half the world. A group of scientists have found 88 nests spread over five hectares near Syracuse, Sicily, Italy, in the first official sighting. The species, native to South America, has major impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and human health. As the name suggests, the bite is painful, irritating and can cause pustules and allergic reactions in addition to anaphylactic shock. The models of the study led by the Institute of Evolutionary Biology-CSIC show alarming predictions about the colonization of this ant in Europe, which could be favored by climate change.
These unwanted colonizers could come from China or the United States, where it is also an invasive species, says the paper published in the journal Current Biology. Some specimens have been detected in imported products in Spain, Finland and Holland, but there has been no confirmation of colonies anywhere in Europe. Once here, the situation is worrying. “The big problem is stopping them, and the chances of success are slim,” says Roger Vila, senior researcher at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology. “If there is an option, it is impossible now, before they start expanding,” he says. When an invasive species lands anywhere in the world, a latency period is created, which then turns into exponential growth.
Red fire ant nest in Italy. Enrico Schifani
Under current climatic conditions, the fire ant could establish itself in 7% of Europe, the researchers say. Half of the continent’s urban areas would be suitable for its creation and, due to its abundance and aggressiveness, could change the lifestyle of people in major cities such as Barcelona, Rome, London or Paris.
The first sign that something was happening in Syracuse came from people who had been painfully stung on a recreational pier. “They sent us photos and we saw that it could be the ant,” says Vila. To verify this, part of the group “consisting of Spanish and Italian researchers” traveled to the site and confirmed by sequencing the DNA that it was the fearsome ant. “When we talked to people, we found that they had been suffering from the bites for three years,” he says. This fact makes them fear that there will be more colonies.
It is very difficult to know how invasive species arrive. On this occasion, too, the exact point is not known, but by studying the wind direction, researchers suspect that some flying ant queens may have come from the northwest, where the trading port of Syracuse is located, about 14 kilometers from the pier where bites occurred . Usually the front door is places with human and commercial activity from other countries, such as: B. this pier, with more commercial traffic than the small pier where the nests were located. The great connection that exists between the coastal cities of the Mediterranean favors this expansion.
Information is the first remedy against climate change. Subscribe to her.
Subscribe to
Dozens of queens in one nest
The researchers advise the regional executive in drawing up an eradication plan that must be approved by the national government. This is not easy due to the fire ant’s reproductive capacity. “First we have to remove what we found and kill the queens with poison bait that the workers carry into the nest,” explains Vila. They are very large habitats that extend underground and are home to tens of thousands of ants and dozens of queens. “The variety that produces super colonies has come to us, there is another that only has one queen per nest,” he says. The second step is to monitor and search for other sources of invasion in nearby locations, especially towards the trading port of Syracuse.
Its rate of expansion is obvious. In less than a century, the species has become established across much of the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, China, Taiwan and Australia, and has only been eradicated in New Zealand, the authors say in a statement. In the United States, its presence causes an estimated loss of almost six billion euros per year. And in Australia they are spending millions trying to eradicate it, so far without success. Invasive species cost $423 billion (about €393 billion) annually worldwide, resulting in economic losses and efforts to eliminate them. And they are among the five main causes of the biodiversity loss crisis plaguing the planet, according to the report “Assessing invasive exotic species and their control” presented last Monday.
Mattia Menchetti, one of the scientists of the study, explains that the species “reduces the biodiversity of invertebrates and small vertebrates and can even harm and kill young individuals of larger animals.” They also cause damage in agriculture by eating parts of plants, and even in the infrastructure due to the deterioration of the cabling.
You can follow KLIMA UND UMWELT on Facebook and Twitteror sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter